NTSB: Airplane ambulance crash in Stagecoach broke apart in flight; weather not abnormal for plane, pilot

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) held a press conference today in Carson City regarding the downed Care Flight airplane that crashed in Stagecoach on Friday night.

During the conference, it was confirmed that the plane's wing had broken off mid-flight only about 14 minutes after it had taken off.

On Friday, a Care Flight crew and its two passengers boarded a PC 12 fixed wing air craft, heading for Salt Lake City, Utah. On the flight were Pilot Scott Walton, Paramedic Ryan Watson, Flight RN Ed Pricola, patient Mark “Bear” Rand and his wife Terri.

At the time of the crash, another winter storm was rolling through the region, causing white out conditions and severe weather.

While taxiing before takeoff at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport, Walton required instruction from Air Traffic Control (ATC) to find the proper runway, and had to be directed with the instruction “look for the blue light,” according to ATC audio records.

However NTSB’s Bruce Landsberg stated that weather conditions were nothing abnormal for pilots or the aircraft.

“It was pretty much a normal winter evening around Reno,” Landsberg said. “With turbulence, wind, weather; I don’t believe the weather that evening would have precluded them from taking off.”

Just before takeoff, air traffic control also warned of turbulent weather due to the storm, and suggested staying above 25,000 feet.

However, the plane and its occupants would never make it above 19,000 feet, and would never reach their destination in Salt Lake City.

The plane fell off of radar after only 14 minutes of being air born, and air traffic control attempted to make contact with the aircraft multiple times before calling other aircraft in the area to be “on guard” for the plane to potentially be grounded, said Landsberg.

A plane crash was reported in the area of Stagecoach around 9:15 p.m. However, the plane was not discovered until two hours later in an area off of Iron Mountain Road.

Radar tracking shows that the plane lost 5,500 feet within 29 seconds above the Iron Mountain Rd. Just before it fell off of radar, which was northwest of the crash site, the plane appears to make a sharp right turn before disappearing.

All five passengers were confirmed deceased at the scene.

Pieces of the aircraft were located at several residences in the nearby area, and it has been confirmed by Landsberg that the craft broke apart mid-flight, with the outboard of the right wing, the horizontal stabilizer, and elevator control service, among others having separated.

“Obviously when those separate, they pull some things along with them,” Landsberg said.

One resident, Linnette Ollson, located what appeared to be pieces of the wing, unidentified pieces of the aircraft, as well as what appeared to be personal effects of the passengers across her property on Wild Horse Run.

“My husband heard it, one neighbor thought their chimney blew off, the other thought it was a barn roof,” Ollson said.

Another resident, Kenise Mae Smith, discovered another piece of the craft on her patio, which struck her patio railing.

This is not the first Guardian Flight to have gone down, according to Landbserg. Out of the 60 aircraft Guardian Flight maintains in their fleet, which are operated “for hire” across the country, this is the fourth such instance of a Guardian Flight crashing or undergoing a malfunction while in flight in the last few years. However, those aircraft were all different makes and models, according to Landsberg.

Out of the three other incidents, two were fatal. One went down in the area of Canada-Alaska and has never been recovered. Another went down in the waters around Hawaii, which was recovered. The third occurred in Arizona, which was an autopilot malfunction and a pilot overcorrection; there were no injuries to the passengers or aircraft during that instance.

NTSB will be on scene for the next several days while they collect pieces from the wreckage scene, which will be transported to a secured warehouse.

“It’s extremely time consuming to make sure we do the most thorough wreckage exam process,” Landsberg said.

The NTSB will be investigating everything from the potential of an icing issue, to weather, mechanical failure and more.

Questions surrounded the maintenance of the plane, which Landsberg said by FAA regulation must be inspected every 100 flight hours as well as annually, and that the plane was “relatively new,” having been constructed in 2002.

There was no flight data or audio recording on the plane, which Landsberg said is something the NTSB would like to see implemented in the future with FAA regulations.

However, they will be investigating whether any other audio recordings can be recovered from the flight.

At this time, there is still no indication of what caused the crash. The preliminary report will be available in about two weeks, with the full report in approximately 12 to 18 months.

Any witnesses to the crash are asked to contact witness@ntsb.gov.

This is a developing story.